PARENTS STUNNED BY THEIR SON'S SLAYING.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

WOODLAND HILLS - Nick Kharabadze was an immigrant prince - popular with girls, a bright future in filmmaking, the hope of his movie star mom and movie producer dad.

But all that ended Jan. 20, the day of a Golden Globe Awards party, when he called home to say he was in Las Vegas.

Odd.

Kharabadze, a native of Tbilisi, Georgia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, had never smoked, though most of his family and friends did. He never drank, though his friends from the Old World did. And he eschewed all games of chance.

It was clear to stepfather Mat Shatz, an eminent producer from Leningrad, and his wife Rusiko, a Georgian stage and film icon, that something was wrong.

``He was never interested in bad stuff,'' said Shatz, once the Soviet Union's No. 2 filmmaker and now a Hollywood producer, sitting next to the family's bear-sized Newfoundland dog Thursday. ``This guy was very smart, very sharp. I think he's of movie-star quality.''

Within days, Kharabadze's BMW was found via satellite parked in Glendale; that of his business associate, Georgy Safiev, was discovered in Burbank.

And despite pleas to police - five hours in a Hollywood station, three hours in a West Valley station, and calls to a Van Nuys station - that they'd been kidnapped, few believed them.

He's just missing, police told Shatz. File a missing person report.

``We're all not protected in this country,'' Shatz, said sadly. ``It's easy to call police on your neighbor - for loud music they come right away. But when you call for serious problems ... they don't want to talk to you.''

Thirteen years ago, when the young Georgian immigrated to Woodland Hills, he thought he'd been found. An actor since he was 3, he discovered the dynamic school of film at USC.

He discovered the Cornice at Mammoth Mountain. Fast cars. Stores full of DVD movies. And most importantly, he discovered the filmmaking expertise of his stepfather and Tinseltown, all eager to pass along a wealth of trade secrets.

The filmmaking brain of Matador Media, a company he formed with a Russian-born partner, he wanted to make ``Manslaughter,'' a Kennedy assassination thriller and a lush film about love on a Caribbean island.

Instead, he would become a victim - and possibly the bait - in a kidnap- for-ransom scheme allegedly perpetrated by thugs from former Soviet Union countries seeking $5 million from his partner.

On Wednesday night, the FBI informed Shatz and his wife their son had been identified among four bodies found in a cold Mother Lode reservoir.

Kharabadze had never even had a price on his head.

His last words to his family were, ``Mom, I love you very much.''

On Thursday, Shatz sat in his slippers, alternately crying and beaming through memories of his handsome stepson.

``Didn't those kidnappers have a mom?'' Kharabadze's mother, Rusiko Kiknadze, wailed in Russian throughout the house. ``How can mothers grow these murderers?''

The answer, said Shatz, is that the godless communist empire ``turned people into robots'' and ``produced the animals that did this to Nick.''

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Photo:

(color) This 1994 family photo shows slaying victim Nick Kharabadze, left, with his stepfather, Mat Shatz, and mother, Rusiko Kiknadze.